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In the solar system, the composition of this plasma is identical to the Sun's corona, 73% hydrogen and 25% helium with the remainder as trace impurities, and is ionized. The exact composition has not yet been measured. A sample return mission, Genesis, returned to Earth in 2004 and is undergoing analysis, but it was damaged by crash-landing when its parachuteApollo 15 capsule landed safely despite a parachute failure. A parachute is a device used to slow the descent of a falling body or load. The word parachute comes from the French words para, protect or shield, and chute, to fall. Therefore parachute actual failed to deploy on reentry to Earth's atmosphereAtmosphere may refer to: a celestial body atmosphere e. Earth's atmosphere stellar atmospheres a unit of pressure: see atmosphere (unit a gas mixture or artificial atmosphere ambience or mood the rap group, Atmosphere ..

Near Earth, the velocity of the solar wind varies from 200-889 km/s. The average is 450 km/ sThis article is about the unit of time. See second (disambiguation) for other uses The second (symbol s is a unit for time, and one of seven SI base units. It is defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transi. Approximately 800 kg/s of material is lost by the Sun as ejected solar wind.

Since solar wind is a plasma, it carries with it the Sun's magnetic fieldIn physics, a magnetic field is an entity produced by moving electric charges ( electric currents) that exerts a force on other moving charges. The quantum-mechanical spin of a particle produces magnetic fields and is acted on by them as though it were a. Out to a distance of approximately 160,000,000 km (100,000,000 miles), the sun's rotation sweeps the solar wind into a spiral pattern by dragging its magnetic field lines with it, but beyond that distance solar wind moves outwards without much additional influence directly from the sun. Unusually energetic outbursts of solar wind caused by solar flaresA solar flare is a violent eruption that explodes from a star's photosphere with energies equivalent to tens of millions of hydrogen bombs. Solar flares from the Sun send out streams of highly energetic solar wind that can present a radiation hazard to sp and other such solar weather phenomena are known as "solar storms" and can subject space probes and satellites to strong doses of radiation. Solar wind particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field tend to collect within the Van Allen radiation belts and can cause the Aurora borealis and the Aurora australis, when they impact with Earth's atmosphere near the poles. Other planets with magnetic fields similar to Earth's also have their own auroras.

The solar wind blows a "bubble" in the interstellar medium (the rarefied hydrogen and helium gas that permeates the galaxy). The point where the solar wind's strength is no longer great enough to push back the interstellar medium is known as the heliopause, and is often considered to be the outer "border" of the solar system. The distance to the heliopause is not precisely known, and probably varies widely depending on the current velocity of the solar wind and the local density of the interstellar medium, but it is known to lie far outside the orbit of Pluto.

See also: magnetopause, magnetosphere, ionosphere, shock wave